“Valkyrie” stars Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a Nazi war hero who attempted to kill Hitler in a plot that involved military higher-ups.

MICHELLE: I enjoyed it. But I watch a lot of History Channel. And, until I saw the movie, I didn”t know how close to success this plan actually came. Sometimes, the truth is more interesting than fiction. If I didn”t watch the history channel, I”d probably not have known about a handsome Nazi colonel who led a gutsy plan to end the evil leadership of his country with a bold face-to-face assassination. And if I”d seen a preview without knowing about the plot, I doubt I”d have believed the eye patch.

ALLEN: I never thought a movie about the sinking of the Titanic would work because everyone knows how that ends. I felt the same way about this film. Everyone knows Hitler committed suicide near the end of the war and was not assassinated. I knew about this attempt on his life, but I didn”t know the details, how complex this plot was, or how close it came to success. I found the film quite involving.

MICHELLE: To me, the best part of the movie were the details of the plan. They literally used the Nazi organizational structure to complete their plan. Operation Valkyrie was a Nazi contingency plan to use part of the military to control civil unrest. They added the assassination of Hitler to it and, blaming the assassination on the SS, almost pulled it off.

ALLEN: All the actors in the film use their own accents. This means that Germans have English, American and, it turns out, German accents. Who knew? This is not as distracting as it might seem. Cruise turns down the boyish charm a bit and pulls off the role of a serious officer. He flashes his famous smile only once and he”s facing away from the audience.

MICHELLE: The film gives little demonstration of why von Stauffenberg did what he did. They show him writing a letter at the beginning of the film. But that”s it. Other than that, it was pretty strong.

ALLEN: Cruise needs a hit with this one. He”s head of the troubled studio that released it. It”s a good film. Time will tell if that”s enough.

Michelle MacEachern and Allen Lunde aren”t professional movie reviewers; they”re just a married couple who like to go to the movies and can be contacted at moviecouple@hotmail.com.